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Soaking Up New Role and Another Spring as a Yankee

TAMPA, Fla., Feb. 27 - It was just another day on the spring-training schedule, like hundreds and hundreds before. It was another day in paradise for Bernie Williams, the wise old man of the Yankees.

At 37, Williams has the perspective to realize just how good he has it. There will be no complaints coming from his corner locker at Legends Field. He makes $10.5 million less than he did last season, and Johnny Damon has taken his position in center field. Life is still fantastic.

"It's all in the way you look at it," Williams said Monday after lifting weights long after most of his teammates had left. "You can look at it and say, 'Oh, they're messing with me, they don't respect me, this and that.' But you've got to make your choice.

"I think if I look at it in a negative way, it would just put a bad taste in my mouth that I shouldn't have, because there's been so much positive and so much greatness that I've witnessed in the last 15 years. You want to remember the positives. At this point in my life, this is gravy, man. This is a great time of my life."

Williams will leave the Yankees on Friday for Port St. Lucie, Fla., where he will train with the Puerto Rican team for the World Baseball Classic. Williams acknowledged that he did not feel ready, physically, to give the effort the tournament would demand.

For now, Williams said he was having too much fun to think about retirement. At Legends Field, his locker is like a front stoop in a close-knit neighborhood. There is a soft armchair next to his folding chair, and second baseman Robinson Cano lounged in it before practice Monday, talking and laughing with teammates.

Williams was not among them. He was heard, not seen, strumming his Guild acoustic guitar in the shower stalls, away from the fray. Teammates walked by, chirping at him and smiling.

Practice was light, but Williams took it seriously. He worked out in left field and right field as Damon and Bubba Crosby roamed center.

Larry Bowa, the new Yankees third-base coach, hit balls into the corner for Williams to chase. Williams gathered them and fired them back to the infield, the angles still seeming a little strange so early in camp.

In center field, fly balls head straight at a fielder, or tail slightly. In the corners, they hook toward the lines. Except for an All-Star Game he remembers, Williams has played only center since 1992.

"I wouldn't call it fun yet," he said. "But it's challenging."

When his contract expired last season, Williams directed his hard-driving agent, Scott Boras, to speak only to the Yankees. After making $12 million last season, he re-signed for $1.5 million and incentives.

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Manager Joe Torre stuck with Williams in 2004, when the team's principal owner, George Steinbrenner, signed another center fielder, Kenny Lofton. But Torre leveled with Williams after his sluggish start last season: It was time to transition out of the regular center-field job.

"One thing I give Bernie is, he didn't fake it by saying, 'O.K., it's your decision,' and be angry or be sad or be upset," Torre said. "He was very pensive on it, and he tried to digest it. It took 10 days or two weeks before he came back to me, and it was pretty much settled in his mind what was taking place."

In July, Williams was replaced for a week by Melky Cabrera, an overmatched rookie. In October, he watched Crosby start three playoff games and crash into Sheffield at the wall in the final loss to the Angels.

Williams never asked for sympathy. He never ripped the organization the way Frank Thomas recently criticized the White Sox, who declined his option after 16 years with the team. Williams said his own posture should not be something special.

"It should be the norm," he said. "It shouldn't be the exception. We get paid to play. I am fortunate to have this opportunity, and every day I am here, I'm grateful to be here and put on the uniform. It's fun to be here. Who wouldn't want to be a part of this team?"

After fielding practice Monday, Williams took swings in an indoor cage, then grabbed his helmet and hustled to the field for batting practice. The fans seemed to cheer his every move.

Practice ended with a base-running drill. Williams, in a T-shirt and uniform pants, led a procession of 15 players that ended with Derek Jeter, the captain. They ran from home to first, first to third, and so on.

It ended with an inside-the-park home run, 360 feet of sprinting. Williams finished, and Torre pulled him aside, joking that he had cost himself a half-step by starting in the right-handed batter's box. Williams smiled.

The players stretched after running, and Williams stayed longer than the rest. With his legs bent and his back to the grass, he did a series of situps, his right shoulder bending toward his left thigh. He flopped his head back, felt the sun on his face and repeated the drill with his left shoulder.

Andy Phillips, who could share time with Williams as a designated hitter, ambled by. Williams made a joke about keeping up with the young guys. Then he rolled over on his chest and exercised some more before leaving the field for the weight room.

The familiar rhythms of spring training form something close to heaven for Williams, still proud to be in pinstripes after so many years. There is just one detail he would change.

"The only thing I wish is I could have gotten a haircut," Williams said. "I'm showing too much gray out there."